Re-Visited: Ray Charles

Pure Genius - The Complete Atlantic Recordings (1952-1959)

It was Frank Sinatra of all people, who at the very height of his own career, hung the “genius” moniker around the neck of Ray Charles. That was some 60 plus years ago now. To this day, has anyone at anytime or anywhere in the world, for one second questioned the universal truth that lies at the heart of that lofty sobriquet? I don’t think so. Charles himself has said that he didn’t much care for it and preferred to be called “Brother Ray.” However, any burden that such a lofty nickname might carry with it, not to mention the source from which it came, did nothing to extinguish the fire that burned inside Ray Charles.

By now the story of Ray Charles Robinson is as familiar to our readers as it is to casual music fans throughout the world.

His music transcended any particular musical genre he was inhabiting at any given time in his career. He was that rare performer who was a hit with both critics and fans, casual listeners and afficionados, men and women, young and old. Both black and white audiences dug the music of Brother Ray. People through the years have referred to Ray Charles as a crossover artist. While this may be true, he actually obliterated any barriers between conventional notions of black and white musical genres. He then took both audiences on his own personal journey through a musical landscape that until we heard it, was only a construct of his own making. Ray Charles was both a traditionalist and an innovator and as often as not, blended those two notions in ways that only he could imagine and then execute.

Where does one begin to explore the vast musical landscape of Ray Charles? There are various jumping off points of course but for me it is his Atlantic recordings that might be the place to start. These are the songs that put him on the map. These recordings made Ray Charles a star and where his genius found a fairly large audience for the first time.

After he left Atlantic, Ray would find superstardom on the ABC-Paramount label. By this time, the early 60’s, he would become a genre hopping, genius whose roots were firmly planted in the blues. Despite this, he would connect with a mainstream audience in the Beatle loving 1960’s. However, for any examination on how a blind “negro” entertainer with a heroin addiction would become a universally beloved figure, one must explore the deep waters of Ray Charles’ Atlantic years.

Sure, there are lots of ways to get acquainted with some of this material, as career retrospectives and “greatest hits” packages abound, but there is only one that gets to the heart and soul of Ray Charles. It is called, Ray Charles: Pure Genius - The Complete Atlantic Recordings (1952-1959). If you thought you knew Ray Charles…think again.

Here Ray gets treated with the respect and dignity that his seemingly endless talent demands. Not only does this 143-track release have every single record he did for Atlantic, it comes with an entire disc of material that has never been released in any format from those fertile years. These include rehearsal sessions with label founder and president, Ahmet Ertegun from 1953 and recording session outtakes from 1958, as well as Ray’s arrangement suggestions for the Genius of Ray Charles album from 1959. This, the seventh disc in the box, might be for archivists, musicologists or just hardcore music geeks (like me), but the previous six discs are for everybody.

I had what I thought was a fairly extensive collection of important recordings from the Atlantic period. These include, but were not limited to the very thoughtful, three-disc, 53 song box-set, Birth of Soul: The Complete Atlantic Rhythm & Blues Recordings.

So, what was I missing? Not to put too fine a point on it, some 90 Ray Charles songs. Take away the 36 associated with disc seven and that still leaves you, fifty something short. When I first started listening to the music in this box…my head exploded. Wouldn’t a fan like me have already heard all the “good stuff” on Ray Charles by now? I remember very vividly talking to Charlie Lange of Bluebeat Music on this subject and told him of my latest revelation. He politely laughed and said, ‘Dave, it’s Ray Charles! What did you expect? A bad song…’ The fact is he didn’t make a bad record in the 1950’s. He didn’t make too many before or after that decade either for that matter. This would seem obvious, but the larger question is, how did I miss all this great material?

Some of this mystery could be answered by reading the liner notes of this package and reading between the lines as well. Ray Charles’ career began as the vinyl, long playing (LP) record album came of age. In fact, the very comprehensive 80-page booklet among other pieces of information, has a complete Atlantic album discography on Ray Charles. It reveals that the first full length album on him wasn’t released until 1957. That record entitled, Ray Charles (aka Hallelujah I Love Her So!) was followed by seven more albums before the turn of the decade and Ray’s departure to ABC-Paramount. Then it was a parade of albums released by Atlantic, mostly various “Greatest Hits” and “Best of…” compilations designed to sell a few more albums on the artist they nurtured and developed, but who had moved on to bigger and better things.

Many of the same songs have found their way onto multiple releases and several others languished in relative obscurity waiting for this box to finally find the light of day. As for the former, the melding of rhythm & blues with the sounds of the sanctified church, which became known as soul music, are fairly well known. These tunes have found their rightful place among the most beloved recordings in Ray’s extensive catalogue.

Of the later, many of these forgotten gems fall into two categories, gut-bucket blues and straight-ahead jazz. These tracks, it was reasoned, didn’t have the “crossover” commercial appeal to appear on these various “Greatest Hits/Best of…” packages. They make up some of my favorite tracks here and sit right next to the more familiar material based on their original release dates. This makes for an entirely new listening experience and one that I enjoy immensely and highly recommend.

As you might expect, the original catalogue numbers and dates are included in the liner notes along with the corresponding album numbers and dates. The recording personnel, along with those dates and locations, are included as well.

By 1952, after releasing some increasingly interesting material for the Swingtime label, Ray Charles was about to come into his own. He was still borrowing heavily from Charles Brown and Nat King Cole when he got to Atlantic. Ray is quoted in Ritz’s liner notes as saying, ‘Whatever I did afterwards couldn’t have happened without Atlantic. Atlantic was my trainer, my mentor and my way into the world.’ By the time he left the label just a few years later in 1959, he had complete control and command of a musical vision that was entirely his own and almost otherworldly.

The album begins with Ray’s first recording sessions at a New York City recording studio on September 11, 1952. Starting out with The Sun Is Going To Shine, Roll With My Baby, The Midnight Hour and Jumpin’ In The Mornin’, it was clear Brother Ray had something besides the sanctified church on his mind.

By tracks five through ten Micky Baker joins the ensemble on guitar. Highlights here include It Should Have Been Me, the Lloyd Glenn/ Lowell Fulson penned Sinner’s Prayer and Mess Around by label boss Ahmet Ertegun. These sides were all produced by Ertegun and his partner Herb Abramson.

The next several songs were recorded in New Orleans and co-produced by Jerry Wexler. Wexler would co-produce every track with Ray including the phenomenal jazz recordings that had Atlantic’s jazz impresario Nesuhi Ertegun co-producing.

There are many examples where the jazz side of Ray came blasting out at listeners in a mind-blowing display of great ensemble playing. Ray’s accompaniment as well as soloing on piano is simply extraordinary. One series of recordings here is the eight selections which were recorded on November 5, 1958, and ended up on an album entitled Fathead/Ray Charles presents David Newman that would come out a year later. By then Newman had been working with Ray for some time and his tenor and alto sax was a key ingredient in the greasy sides Ray was cooking up.

It is also interesting to note that several of the elements that helped to propel Ray to great stardom and mainstream popular success in the 60’s was already present in the 1950’s. On this box you will find early writing collaborations with Percy Mayfield and Quincy Jones for instance. Ray’s first time recording a country western tune is also found here and it may be his best. His interpretation of Hank Snow’s I’m Moving On was his first crack at recording a song written by a country-western singer. As everybody knows it wouldn’t be his last. This tune along with his own, I Believe To My Soul, both recorded in October of 1959, represented his last appearance at the Atlantic Records’ studio in New York City.

Getting back to the topic of the 80-page booklet, it includes a two page forward by Ahmet Ertegun and a wonderful 37-page narrative written by Charles’ biographer, David Ritz. Then it is on to the original liner notes from twelve full length albums. Writers here include Nat Hintoff, Leonard Feather and others. In addition, there are the liner notes from three compilations. Again, Feather and Hintoff step up, as does Jerry Wexler who was a music journalist before signing on with Atlantic and becoming one of the great producers in the rhythm & blues field.

The term itself, “rhythm & blues” was coined by Wexler, as he felt the common descriptor used at the time of “race records” or “race music” had a pejorative ring to it. I always love to read what the great writers of the day had to say on the topic, at the time that this career was unfolding.

The liner notes also clean up some mistakes and misattributions that have been present since the original album releases and subsequent re-issues. A great example and one that always chapped my hide is the song previously known as Mr. Charles Blues and attributed to Ray. It is now corrected and referenced using the correct name I Got a Break Baby and attributed to T-Bone Walker, who recorded the song a decade earlier.

When it comes to Pure Genius – The Complete Atlantic Recordings (1952-1959) it is about the music of course and here the sound reproduction is spectacular, the musicianship is awesome and the songs are great. I think it is important to note that Ray himself has been highly effusive in his praise of the Atlantic team and credits them for turning the studio over to him to let him do his thing…his way. He also gives great credit to engineer Tom Dowd who according to Ray, ‘…taught me everything I needed to know about engineering.’ The Atlantic team is also the star here and their contributions to these recordings can’t be overstated and certainly not overlooked.

If you were to examine the word “genius” or the title of this box set, Pure Genius…as it relates to the artist known the world over as Ray Charles, the way I have always thought about it is like this: If he was only a vocalist…never touched any other musical instrument, never was a band leader, songwriter or arranger, he would be a genius based on his highly emotive and instantly recognizable one of a kind vocal delivery. If he never sang a note in his life and was only a pianist…he would be a genius. His jazz chops for instance, are all over this box set and are just stunning. He would have a legacy similar to that of the greatest jazz pianists who ever lived. If he was only a band leader, arranger and songwriter and didn’t even sing or play the piano…he would be a star and yes…a genius.

He made his bands his instrument. Ray turned the vocal group The Cookies into the Raelettes. How he used their talents in service of his vision is nothing short of genius in and of itself. Oh, and for good measure, Ray played some mean alto sax.

Genius, yeah that pretty much sums it up. Through his music and throughout his long career he would remind listeners of this nickname. However, Ray Charles: Pure Genius – The Complete Atlantic Recordings (1952-1959) may be the greatest reminder of them all.